, and her
deserted home had been for rent, furnished, but it had remained vacant.

Annie soon came back from the orchard, and after she had cleared
away the supper-table and washed the dishes she went up to her room,
carefully rearranged her hair, and changed her dress. Then she sat down
beside a window and waited and watched, her pointed chin in a cup of one
little thin hand, her soft muslin skirts circling around her, and
the scent of queer old sachet emanating from a flowered ribbon of her
grandmother's which she had tied around her waist. The ancient scent
always clung to the ribbon, suggesting faintly as a dream the musk and
roses and violets of some old summer-time.

Annie sat there and gazed out on the front yard, which was silvered over
with moonlight. Annie's four sisters all sat out there. They had spread
a rug over the damp grass and brought out chairs. There were five
chairs, although there were only four girls. Annie gazed over the yard
and down the street. She heard the chatter of the girls, which was
inconsequent and absent, as if their minds were on other things than
their conversation. Then suddenly she saw a small red gleam far down the
street, evidently that of a cigar, and also a dark, moving figure. Then
there ensued a subdued wrangle in the yard. Imogen insisted that her
sisters should go into the house. They all resisted, Eliza the most
vehemently. Imogen was arrogant and compelling. Finally she drove them
all into the house except Eliza, who wavered upon the threshold of
yielding. Imogen was obliged to speak very softly lest the approaching
man hear, but Annie, in the window above her, heard every word.

"You know he is coming to see me," said Imogen, passionately. "You
know--you know, Eliza, and yet every single time he comes, here are you
girls, spying and listening."

"He comes to see Annie, I believe," said Eliza, in her stubborn voice,
which yet had indecision in it.

"He never asks for her."

"He never has a chance. We all tell him, the minute he comes in, that
she is out. But now I am going to stay, anyway."

"Stay if you want to. You are all a jealous lot. If you girls can't have
a beau yourselves, you begrudge one to me. I never saw such a house as
this for a man to come courting in."

"I will stay," said Eliza, and this time her voice was wholly firm.
"There is no use in my going, anyway, for the others are coming back."

It was true. Back flitted Jane and Susan, and by that t